Helldivers 2 has been transformed into a 16-bit arcade classic via a demake concept, and its creators would be open to making it a proper mini-game

If you’ve ever wondered what Helldivers 2 might have looked like if it’d come out back in the 90s, as a lot of the media that inspires its central themes and narratives did, you’re in luck. Some fans have made a concept for a 16-bit demake of it, and would even be open to working with Arrowhead to make their creation an actual in-game activity.

While the fresh Major Orders keep rolling in, some divers have been a bit distracted lately by datamines and potential warbond leaks. Sadly, by showing you this, I doubt I’ll be helping increase your focus on routing the Automatons now the strategy of dividing their forces in two has worked.

Without further adieu, here’s 64 Bits’ Helldivers 2 demake for Neo Geo/Arcades, which you can watch a video of below. While it’s just a teaser of a project that’s been in the works over on Newgrounds, it’s been put together by a team that’ve got plenty of experience doing this kind of thing.

For example, they’ve previously put together renders of what the likes of Elden Ring on the SNES and Palworld on the Nintendo DS might look like. As you can see, their latest work does a pretty great job of capturing the frenetic action that makes Helldivers 2 tick and transplanting it into an old school skin that somehow feels even more like it’s got 15 copies of Demolition Man taped at home, just in case something happens to one of them.

64 Bits – Helldivers 2 Demake for Neo Geo/Arcades

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“It was a crazy amount of fun to make! We know it’s just a video and not actually playable (although we’d love to do more playable demakes in the future),” one of its creators, user nbshar, wrote in a Reddit post about the demake. They also added with regards to that last part: “If Arrowhead/Helldivers reaches out for a minigame version inside Helldivers 2 for on your ship, we would definitely say yes haha…”

Obviously, they could well be joking, but there look to be plenty of folks hoping that the studio behind the FPS hit will make contact and call their bluff, judging by the amount tagging Arrowhead CCO Johan Pilestedt’s Reddit account. After all, who doesn’t need more reason not to bother leaving their dropship every so often?

Are you keen to play some 16-bit Helldivers 2 in between future operations? Let us know below.